Comcast Corp. reported $3.2 billion in third-quarter profits on Thursday as the cable and media giant added more high-speed internet customers but continued to shed less profitable pay TV viewers.
The Philadelphia company's cable unit signed up 379,000 broadband customers from July through September, while losing 238,000 Xfinity TV subscribers. The cable division's revenues were up 4% overall, driven by gains in internet, business services, and wireless revenue.
Despite the cord-cutting woes, analysts have said Comcast's shift to internet-related businesses should boost profits over time since it would no longer have to pay entertainment companies for the rights to carry their cable channels.
Comcast pulled in $26.8 billion in revenue during the quarter, up 21.2%, largely due to the acquisition of Sky, the European telecommunications company that Comcast bought for $40 billion in late 2018. Net income was up 11.5% to $3.2 billion, or 70 cents per share.
NBCUniversal's revenues dropped 3.5% overall and were down across its cable networks (2.8%), broadcast television (9.1%), and filmed entertainment (6.2%) businesses. However, revenue from theme parks jumped 6.8% compared to the same quarter last year.
Comcast blamed NBCUniversal's film revenue slump on the success of releases such as Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again last year. As for the broadcast declines, the company noted the absence of advertising revenue from Telemundo's coverage of the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia.
Sky revenue fell 4.2%, but when adjusted for currency rose nearly 1%. Sky _ whose largest pay TV markets are U.K., Germany and Italy _ lost 99,000 customers during the quarter, compared to a gain of 426,000 last year.
